Hasami Shogi

The second game in the Asia volume from Lemery Games.

Hasami Shogi is from Japan, and is traditionally played with Shogi pawns on a 9 x 9 Shogi board. It appears to be a game of recent origin, taking the board and pawns from Shogi for a different kind of game.

Hasami Shogi actually comes in two quite different play versions, though both use custodian capture (pieces are captured by being surrounded by two enemy pieces on either side). One version is a war game, where the aim is to capture all enemy pieces. This version is pretty much identical to the Roman game Ludus Latrunculorum (which raises the interesting question as to whether it is somehow based on or inspired by the Roman game, or whether the similarity is purely coincidental). The aim of the other version (played with double the number of pieces, and sometimes referred to as Dai Hashami Shogi) is to be the first to get five pieces in a row either horizontally or vertically. As such, it is a positional game.

The game from Lemery Games comes in a little cardboard box ... 

... which contains a small pouch ...

... which contains the cloth board and wooden pieces. 

The cloth board is printed differently on both sides, allowing play of both versions of Hashami Shogi, and there are enough pieces to play the larger version.

Here is the board and initial set-up for the 'war game' version:

And this is the board and initial set-up for 'Dai Hashami Shogi':

As I've mentioned before, the game is beautifully produced, in every aspect.